Cathedral Street
Borough Market
London SE1 9AL
Tel: 020 7407 3803
Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, February 7 2006
The Victims: Too many to mention.
The Damage: £33 each.
The Background: I was with a lot of people from China. We wanted to give them a little London experience, so I was thinking walk along the Southbank, cross the Millennium Bridge, around St. Paul’s, etc. And I knew seafood would be a good option. And you know, I’ve been walking by Fish! for three years now so it was time to give it a shot.
The Approach: We arrive and are seated immediately. Then we are left to our own devices for a while. A long while. And then someone comes to take our drink orders, and he is just so not patient with us. He just sorta stands there, looking at us. Waiting for us.
The Service: We have to wave someone down to take our food order. And boy, does he want us to order one appetizer each. I knew that would be too much food for our group. I just wanted to share a few dishes. But he just would not leave it be. I was really annoyed. And he wanted to take both our appetizer and main order at the same time, and there I am trying to read out Pinyin translations of all the fish on the menu via my Blackberry (mucho thanks to two of my Chinese colleagues who have lived in the English speaking world for quite some time and know how to say Swordfish and Monkfish and John Dory in Chinese). I explained that this was going to take a while and can’t he just bring the four appetizers for the 10 of us and come back later. I could tell he was annoyed, which just made me annoyed. I am normally not a harsh person but finally I practically screamed at him, "Just get us the appetizers and come back in 5 minutes."
The Appetizers: Underwhelming. A couple of calamari rings that had some stuff unattractively drizzled over them. The Thai fish cakes were okay, but seemed a little overcooked.
The Mains: Eh. My fish was nice–I went with the sea bass with the spicy salsa–but the bed of vegetables it was on was lame and cheap. Some carrots and some cabbage. No finesse. My Chinese colleagues loved everything, but it was also one of their first meals in the Western world, so they were (I might argue) still in honeymoon mode.
Back to The Service: Oh yeah, our server also wanted everyone to order a side. And the majority of sides were potatoes. And cold salad. I said to the guy, "Listen we don’t need many sides. Just 2 chips, 2 mashed, and 2 mushy peas" and he kept trying to pretend that the servings were so miniscule that that would never be enough.
The Verdict: Eh. Not going back. I want to eat. Not to be sold. If I wanted to be sold on something, I’d go look for a car. Shame the one dude had to ruin everything for me.
